Bibliotekarstudentens nettleksikon om litteratur og medier
Av Helge Ridderstrøm (førsteamanuensis ved OsloMet – storbyuniversitetet)
Sist oppdatert 09.12.20
Transmedial historie
En sammenhengende historie som inkluderer mer enn ett medium, f.eks. både en roman (bok) og en tegneserie (blad). På engelsk kalt “transmedia story” (Henry Jenkins) med lange fortellinger som utgjør “story arcs” (Jenkins 2008 s. 119, Harrigan og Wardrip-Fruin 2009 s. 67); “synergetic storytelling” (Ivan Askwith); “multiplatform entertainment” (Danny Bilson); en flermedial “meganarrative” (Harrigan og Wardrip-Fruin 2009 s. 233); “screen bleed”; “cross-sited narratives”. En slik lang historie skaper en “totalitetserfaring”, et univers med et “shared-world milieu” (Harrigan og Wardrip-Fruin 2009 s. 32).
Det skapes “new structures that shatter the fixity of narrative as a single-medium endeavor and establish instead a multiply-mediated storyworld […] cross-sited narratives” (Marc Ruppel sitert fra Dena 2009 s. 2). Hvis historien kun foregår i digitale medier, kan det kalles et “Gesamtdatenwerk” (Roy Ascott sitert fra Dena 2009 s. 3). Andre betegnelser på transmediale historier i ulike varianter er: “distributed narratives (Walker 2004), cross-sited narratives (Ruppel 2005a), pervasive games (Montola m.fl. 2009), ubiquitous gaming (McGonigal 2006), networked narrative environments (Zapp 2004), superfictions (Hill 2001), very distributed storytelling (Davenport 1998)” (Dena 2009 s. 16), “medial hybridisering” og “transmedial konvergens” (Ritzer og Schulze 2016 s. 258). Det samme fenomenet dekkes av det som Jan Baetens og Marc Lits kaller “polytexte” (2004 s. 137).
“One can imagine games taking their place within a larger narrative system with story information communicated through books, film, television, comics, and other media, each doing what it does best, each relatively autonomous experience, but the richest understanding of the story world coming to those who follow the narrative across the various channels. In such a system, what games do best will almost certainly center around their ability to give concrete shape to our memories and imaginings of the storyworld, creating an immersive environment we can wander through and interact with.” (Henry Jenkins i http://www.electronicbookreview. com/thread/firstperson/lazzi-fair; lesedato 12.10.10) “The term transmedia storytelling was coined to refer to specific types of artefacts, stories or universes that are spread indeed across media, but in particular ways, typically where parts of the story are written for different media. Transmedia is multimodal, multisited and encourages engagement with the story world in a range of different locations, often
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both physical and virtual.” (Alexis Weedon, David Miller m.fl. i http://journals. sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1354856513515968; lesedato 23.01.18)
Det er “transmedia entities” som inneholder minst to enheter fra “books, films, games, websites, and even reference works like dictionaries, glossaries, atlases, concordances, and more” (Wolf gjengitt etter Genvo 2006). Robin D. Laws bruker uttrykket “cross-pollination of intellectual property” (i Harrigan og Wardrip-Fruin 2009 s. 59). Til sammen utgjør den lange historien et slags mytologisk medieterreng, som med Star Trek , en verden som tiltaler mange fordi den rommer f.eks. både spennende action og filosofisk dybde . Kontinuitet og akkumulerte detaljer er noe av det som bidrar til gode “stories across media” (Harrigan og Wardrip-Fruin 2009 s. 411). Men transmediale historier “demand and reveal a new kind of multimodal practitioner” (Dena 2009 s. 5).
En adaptasjon forteller derimot en variant av den (i bunn og grunn) samme historien som allerede er skapt, ikke en fortsettelse av den.
Noen verk følges av mange adaptasjoner:
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Det transmediale materialet (nedenfor markert med rødt) kan la seg inspirere av både verket og av adaptasjoner av verket, men også fjerne seg mye fra adaptasjonene. En historien kan fortsette via Internett-sider, apper for smart- telefoner, og inkludering i portaler for sosiale medier som Youtube og Facebook (Ritzer og Schulze 2016 s. 254). At slike innganger er online, gjør det enkelt å ha hyppige oppdateringer (Ritzer og Schulze 2016 s. 256).
“Like much of new media, transmedia storytelling is participatory, often soliciting creative contributions, it is user-led and engenders community. Nevertheless transmedia storytelling can involve the traditional analogue channels excluded by new media. Its storyworld is multifaceted with each platform having a linked story. The extent these are integrated depends on the narrative, in some cases, the narratives are synergistic, in others complete stories in their own right.” (Alexis Weedon og Julia Knight i http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/13548565 15601656; lesedato 30.01.18)
Hvert verk påvirker opplevelsen av de andre verkene i den transmediale historien. Ulike personer som opplever forskjellige verk og opplever dem i ulik rekkefølge,
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vil få hver sin versjon av den fiktive verdenen. Rekkefølgen påvirker opplevelsen. Nedenfor er det skissert en transmedial historie som består av fire verk i fire forskjellige medier (boka produsert først forteller første del av historien, dataspillet produsert sist handler om avslutningen av historien). Person A er den eneste som leser, ser og bruker alle de fire verkene. Person A bruker de to første verkene i den rekkefølgen de ble utgitt/produsert i, men bytter om på historiens kronologiske rekkefølge med bruken av de to siste verkene. Person B bruker tre verk, men ikke i kronologisk rekkefølge. Person C forholder seg bare til ett verk i den transmediale historien, og oppdager kanskje ikke at verket inngår i en serie av verk. Person C er ikke en transmedial bruker.
Noen eksempler på transmediale historier: “Inside the box [som rommet et dataspill på begynnelsen av 1980-tallet], game instruction manuals also attempted to add exciting narrative contexts to the games, no matter how far-fetched they were. Several games that were more abstract in their design, like Centipede (1982) and Yars’ Revenge (1981), even came packaged with small comic books that set up the narrative that was supposedly continued in the game.” (Wolf og Perron 2003 s. 59) “Delta Green is a role-playing game, [...] its narrative exists within an even broader narrative that weaves its way through not just role-playing games but also novels, television series, film, computer games, and many other forms of media.” (Harrigan og Wardrip-Fruin 2009 s. 77) Den tyske forfatteren Sven Regener skriver blogger som er “fortsettelse av hans romaner med andre midler i andre medier med andre figurer” (Porombka 2012 s. 100).
Henry Jenkins bruker “transmedia story” om svært omfattende historier som fortsetter i medium etter medium. “A transmedia story unfolds across multiple media platforms, with each new text making a distinctive and valuable contribution to the whole. In the ideal form of transmedia storytelling, each medium does what it does best – so that the story might be introduced in a film, expanded through television, novels, and comics; its world might be explored through game play or experienced as an amusement park attraction. Each franchise entry needs to be self- contained so you don’t need to have seen the film to enjoy the game, and vice versa. Any given product is a point of entry into the franchise as a whole. Reading across the media sustains a depth of experience that motivates more consumption. Redundancy burns up fan interest and causes franchises to fail. Offering new levels of insight and experience refreshes the franchise and sustains consumer loyalty. The economic logic of a horizontally integrated entertainment industry – that is, one where a single company may have roots across all of the different media
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sectors – dictates the flow of content across media. Different media attract different market niches. Films and television probably have the most diverse audiences; comics and games the narrowest. A good transmedia franchise works to attract multiple constituencies by pitching the content somewhat differently in different media. If there is, however, enough to sustain those different constituencies – and each work offers fresh experiences – then you can count on a crossover market that will expand the potential gross.” (Jenkins 2008 s. 97-98) Hver del i den transmediale historien har altså en relativ autonomi og kan meningsfullt oppleves for seg. Det å få med seg flere deler, gir en dypere innsikt. Og det kan skapes et “crossover market”, et påtverspublikum som oppsøker for dem ganske ukjente medier, nye sjangrer osv.
“[T]here are strong economic motives behind transmedia storytelling. Media convergence makes the flow of content across multiple media platforms inevitable. In the era of digital effects and high-resolution game graphics, the game world can now look almost exactly like the film world – because they are reusing many of the same digital assets. Everything about the structure of the modern entertainment industry was designed with this single idea in mind – the construction and enhancement of entertainment franchises. [...] In co-creation, the companies collaborate from the beginning to create content they know plays well in each of their sectors, allowing each medium to generate new experiences for the consumer and expand points of entry into the franchise.” (Jenkins 2008 s. 106-107) “Increasingly, elements are dropped into the films to create openings that will be fully exploited only through other media.” (s. 109) Den transmediale historien tilbyr mange “inngangsporter”.
George Lucas’ Star Wars -univers utgjør en transmedial historie som er “rhizomatisk” (Rauscher 2012 s. 264), dvs. et nettverk eller “expanded universe” av historier der både medie- og sjangergrenser er opphevet. Historiene utgjør en “Multi-Media-Patchwork” der det bl.a. inngår filmer, romaner, tegneserier og dataspill (Rauscher 2012 s. 265-266).
Barnekultur-forskerne David Buckingham og Julian Sefton-Green beskriver bruken av Pokémon -produktene slik: “Children may watch the television cartoon, for example, as a way of gathering knowledge that they can later utilize in playing the computer game or in trading cards, and vice versa. ... The texts of Pokémon are not designed merely to be consumed in the passive sense of the word. ... In order to be part of the Pokémon culture, and to learn what you need to know, you must actively seek out new information and new products and, crucially, engage with others in doing so.” (sitert fra Jenkins 2008 s. 132-133) “[W]hat is increasingly becoming harder to identify here is the “source text”: we cannot make sense of the phenomena such as Pokémon in terms of an original text and a collection of “spin offs” that subsequently exploit its success. […] Pokémon was planned as a cross- media enterprise from a very early stage.” (Buckingham og Sefton-Green sitert fra Dena 2009 s. 45) 5
“The contemporary phenomenon of overflow, then, transforms the audience relationship with the text from a limited, largely one-way engagement based around a proscribed time slot and single medium into a far more fluid, flexible affair which crosses media platforms – Internet, mobile phone, stereo system, shopping mall – in a process of convergence. I use the latter term in the sense suggested by Henry Jenkins, as a drawing-together of media forms; Jenkins employs the terms ‘cultural convergence’ for a ground-up, tactical creativity across different media, and ‘media convergence’ for a top-down ‘structured interactivity’ which implies a pattern of marketing strategies. [...] rather than grassroots fan communities which produce their own artwork and stories, often with ‘resistant’ interpretations of the text, what we see here are communities who follow the trail laid out by the media producers, from website to merchandise to multiplex. These sophisticated websites encourage an active response, but unlike the kind of fan response which has been around for decades, producing secondary texts on its own terms, this relationship is entirely shaped from ‘above’.” (Brooker og Jermyn 2006 s. 325)
“[T]he narrative world can be distinctively built up, fleshed out, and layered through transmedia storytelling such that it becomes an immensely rich space capable of sustaining a great volume of fan engagement over time.” (Matt Hills i http://www.participations.org/Volume%209/Issue%202/23%20Hills.pdf; lesedato 13.04.18)
“Not every story will go in this direction – though more and more stories are traveling across media and offering a depth of experience that would have been unanticipated in previous decades. The key point is that going in deep has to remain an option – something readers choose to do – and not the only way to derive pleasure from media franchise. [...] sometimes, we simply want to watch. And as long as that remains the case, many franchises may remain big and dumb and noisy. But don’t be surprised if around the edges there are clues that something else is also going on or that the media companies will offer us the chance to buy into new kinds of experiences with those characters and those worlds.” (Jenkins 2008 s. 134)
På sin blogg hadde Jenkins 11.08.09 en sammenfatning av hva “transmedia stories” innebærer, fordelt på ti punkter: 1. Flere medier i samvirke, 2. Økonomisk incentiv, 3. Encyklopediske verdener, 4. Sjanger- og funksjonsmangfold, 5. Variabel publikumsappell, 6. Relativ autonomi, 7. Produksjonssamarbeid, 8. Mottakersamarbeid, 9. Performativ resepsjon, og 10. Kreativ egenproduksjon (jf. selvtilegnelsesadaptasjon).
“1. Transmedia storytelling represents a process where integral elements of a fiction get dispersed systematically across multiple delivery channels for the purpose of creating a unified and coordinated entertainment experience. Ideally, each medium makes it own unique contribution to the unfolding of the story. So,
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for example, in The Matrix franchise, key bits of information are conveyed through three live action films, a series of animated shorts, two collections of comic book stories, and several video games. There is no one single source or ur-text where one can turn to gain all of the information needed to comprehend the Matrix universe.
2. Transmedia storytelling reflects the economics of media consolidation or what industry observers call “synergy.” Modern media companies are horizontally integrated – that is, they hold interests across a range of what were once distinct media industries. A media conglomerate has an incentive to spread its brand or expand its franchises across as many different media platforms as possible. Consider, for example, the comic books published in advance of the release of such films as Batman Begins and Superman Returns by DC (owned by Warner Brothers, the studio that released these films). These comics provided back-story which enhanced the viewer’s experience of the film even as they also help to publicize the forthcoming release (thus blurring the line between marketing and entertainment). The current configuration of the entertainment industry makes transmedia expansion an economic imperative, yet the most gifted transmedia artists also surf these marketplace pressures to create a more expansive and immersive story than would have been possible otherwise.
3. Most often, transmedia stories are based not on individual characters or specific plots but rather complex fictional worlds which can sustain multiple interrelated characters and their stories. This process of world-building encourages an encyclopedic impulse in both readers and writers. We are drawn to master what can be known about a world which always expands beyond our grasp. This is a very different pleasure than we associate with the closure found in most classically constructed narratives, where we expect to leave the theatre knowing everything that is required to make sense of a particular story.
4. Extensions may serve a variety of different functions. For example, the BBC used radio dramas to maintain audience interest in Doctor Who during almost a decade during which no new television episodes were produced. The extension may provide insight into the characters and their motivations (as in the case of websites surrounding Dawson’s Creek and Veronica Mars which reproduced the imaginary correspondence or journals of their feature characters), may flesh out aspects of the fictional world (as in the web version of the Daily Planet published each week by DC comics during the run of its 52 series to “report” on the events occurring across its superhero universe), or may bridge between events depicted in a series of sequels (as in the animated series – The Clone Wars – which was aired on the Cartoon Network to bridge over a lapse in time between Star Wars II and III). The extension may add a greater sense of realism to the fiction as a whole (as occurs when fake documents and time lines were produced for the website associated with The Blair Witch Project or in a different sense, the documentary films and cd-roms produced by James Cameron to provide historical context for Titanic ).
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5. Transmedia storytelling practices may expand the potential market for a property by creating different points of entry for different audience segments. So, for example, Marvel produces comic books which tell the Spider-man story in ways that they think will be particularly attractive to female (a romance comic, Mary Jane Loves Spiderman ) or younger readers (coloring book or picture book versions of the classic comicbook stories). Similarly, the strategy may work to draw viewers who are comfortable in a particular medium to experiment with alternative media platforms (as in the development of a Desperate Housewives game designed to attract older female consumers into gaming).
6. Ideally, each individual episode must be accessible on its own terms even as it makes a unique contribution to the narrative system as a whole. Game designer Neil Young coined the term, “additive comprehension,” to refer to the ways that each new texts adds a new piece of information which forces us to revise our understanding of the fiction as a whole. His example was the addition of an image of an origami unicorn to the director’s cut edition of Bladerunner , an element which raised questions about whether the protagonist might be a replicant. Transmedia producers have found it difficult to achieve the delicate balance between creating stories which make sense to first time viewers and building in elements which enhance the experience of people reading across multiple media.
7. Because transmedia storytelling requires a high degree of coordination across the different media sectors, it has so far worked best either in independent projects where the same artist shapes the story across all of the media involved or in projects where strong collaboration (or co-creation) is encouraged across the different divisions of the same company. Most media franchises, however, are governed not by co-creation (which involves conceiving the property in transmedia terms from the outset) but rather licensing (where the story originates in one media and subsequent media remain subordinate to the original master text).
8. Transmedia storytelling is the ideal aesthetic form for an era of collective intelligence. Pierre Levy coined the term, collective intelligence, to refer to new social structures that enable the production and circulation of knowledge within a networked society. Participants pool information and tap each others expertise as they work together to solve problems. Levy argues that art in an age of collective intelligence functions as a cultural attractor, drawing together like-minded individuals to form new knowledge communities. Transmedia narratives also function as textual activators – setting into motion the production, assessment, and archiving information. The ABC television drama, Lost , for example, flashed a dense map in the midst of one second season episode: fans digitized a freeze-frame of the image and put it on the web where together they extrapolated about what it might reveal regarding the Hanso Corporation and its activities on the island. Transmedia storytelling expands what can be known about a particular fictional world while dispersing that information, insuring that no one consumer knows everything and insure that they must talk about the series with others (see, for
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example, the hundreds of different species featured in Pokemon or Yu-Gi-O). Consumers become hunters and gatherers moving back across the various narratives trying to stitch together a coherent picture from the dispersed information.
9. A transmedia text does not simply disperse information: it provides a set of roles and goals which readers can assume as they enact aspects of the story through their everyday life. We might see this performative dimension at play with the release of action figures which encourage children to construct their own stories about the fictional characters or costumes and role playing games which invite us to immerse ourselves in the world of the fiction. In the case of Star Wars , the Boba Fett action figure generated consumer interest in a character who had otherwise played a small role in the series, creating pressure for giving that character a larger plot function in future stories.
10. The encyclopedic ambitions of transmedia texts often results in what might be seen as gaps or excesses in the unfolding of the story: that is, they introduce potential plots which can not be fully told or extra details which hint at more than can be revealed. Readers, thus, have a strong incentive to continue to elaborate on these story elements, working them over through their speculations, until they take on a life of their own. Fan fiction can be seen as an unauthorized expansion of these media franchises into new directions which reflect the reader’s desire to “fill in the gaps” they have discovered in the commercially produced material.”
Forfatterne/produsentene må forholde seg til “transmedial narratology” (Dena 2009 s. 17). “Drawing on Barthes’ notion of a noyau , Chatman describes story events in terms of a hierarchy, where kernels ( noyau ) are “major events [that] are part of the chain or armature of contingency,” they “are narrative moments that give rise to cruxes in the direction taken by events” ([Story and Discourse: Narrative Structure in Fiction and Film , 1978], 53). “Kernels,” he continues, “cannot be deleted without destroying narrative logic” (ibid.). The function of kernels is that of “filling in, elaborating, completing the kernel; they form the flesh on the skeleton” (ibid., 54). On the other hand, satellites “can be deleted without disturbing the logic of the plot” (ibid.). While Chatman is discussing plot events within a story within a medium, the notion is nevertheless applicable across media and modes. But while there can be kernels and satellites within a composition, I transpose the notion to relationships between compositions. That is, while each composition may be self- contained, and expand the fictional world, each of the compositions may have varying hierarchical status in terms of what is essential for coherence. Some compositions can expand the fictional world but may not be critical for understanding content in another composition. This is particularly pertinent in the current context of transmedia practices as not all participants engage with all media, and the medium that has the most participants will often become the primary expressive medium for practitioners and audiences alike.” (Dena 2009 s. 242-243)
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Brødrene Wachowskis Matrix -filmer har altså ført til verk spredt i flere medier. I boka Convergence culture: Where old and new media collide skriver Jenkins: “The filmmakers plant clues that won’t make sense until we play the computer game. They draw on the back story revealed through a series of animated shorts, which need to be downloaded off the Web or watched off a separate DVD. Fans raced, dazed and confused, from the theaters to plug into Internet discussion lists, where every detail would be dissected and every possible interpretation debated. [...] The Matrix is entertainment for the age of media convergence, integrating multiple texts to create a narrative so large that it cannot be contained within a single medium. The Wachowski brothers played the transmedia game very well, putting out the original film first to stimulate interest, offering a few Web comics to sustain the hard-core fan’s hunger for more information, launching the anime in anticipation of the second film, releasing the computer game alongside it to surf the publicity, bringing the whole cycle to a conclusion with The Matrix Revolutions , and then turning the whole mythology over to the players of the massively multiplayer online game. Each step along the way built on what has come before, while offering new points of entry.” (Jenkins 2008 s. 96-97) Men det oppstod noen problemer: “Many fans expressed disappointment because their own theories about the world of The Matrix were more rich and nuanced than anything they ever saw on the screen. I would argue however, that we do not yet have very good aesthetic criteria for evaluating works that play themselves out across multiple media.” (Jenkins 2008 s. 98-99)
Hvorfor kunne svært forskjellige mennesker finne noe fascinerende i de ulike Matrix -produktene som ble lagd for ulike medier? “First and foremost, the film’s [dvs. The Matrix ] got pop appeal elements. All kinds of elements: suicidal attacks by elite special forces, crashing helicopters, oodles of martial arts, a chaste yet passionate story of predestined love, bug-eyed monsters of the absolute first water, fetish clothes, captivity and torture and daring rescue, plus really weird, cool submarines ... There’s Christian exegesis, a Redeemer myth, a death and rebirth, a hero in self-discovery, The Odyssey , Jean Baudrillard (lots of Baudrillard, the best part of the film), science fiction ontological riffs of the Philip K. Dick school, Nebuchadnezzar, the Buddha, Taoism, martial-arts mysticism, oracular prophecy, spoon-bending telekinesis, Houdini stage-show magic, Joseph Campbell, and Godelian mathematical metaphysics.” (Bruce Sterling sitert fra Jenkins 2008 s. 100)
Nelson og Jenkins poeng om “narrative closure” og relativ autonomi kan illustreres slik:
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Hvert enkeltverk og hvert medium kan bli en inngangsport til de store, filosofiske temaene som kan ligge i den transmediale historien. Det enkelte verk bidrar i ulik grad til å belyse disse temaene, men alle leder inn mot dem:
I den første Matrix -filmen tar hovedpersonen ei bok ut av hylla, og vi ser at det er den franske filosofen Jean Baudrillards Simulacra & Simulation (oversatt til engelsk i 1994). Og Morpheus siterer Baudrillard når han sier “Welcome to the 'desert of the real' ”. Baudrillard ble kontaktet av Andy og Larry Wachowski, og spurt om han ville samarbeide om å lage Matrix -filmer, men takket nei med begrunnelsen at hans teorier ikke ble tatt alvorlig nok (Rauscher 2012 s. 48).
“The addressing of different audiences with different content in different media and environments is described as tiering (Dena 2008). Tiering denotes the design of projects that facilitate different points-of-entry into a transmedia fiction through targeting different content (and in many cases media) to different audiences. It is akin to the notion of “polysemous address,” which Jenkins recognizes in television programs that combine genres with the aim of appealing to different audiences
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(Jenkins 1992, 125). It has affinities with children’s literature that addresses both parent and child, as recognised in narrative theories of “dual audience,” “crosswriting” and “crossover literature” (Beckett 1999); “dual implied addressee” (Sell 2002) and “double narrate” (Hansen 2005). In industry as well there is the term “four-quadrant film”, which is used to describe a film that (is designed to) appeal to males and females above and below the age of twenty-five (young and old). While the strategy of addressing different audiences or players remains the same, the difference between tiering and these practices is that different audiences are addressed with distinct media elements, a phenomenon that is particularly pronounced in early transmedia projects.” (Dena 2009 s. 239-240)
“The [Matrix-] film’s endless borrowings also spark audience response. Layers upon layers of reference catalyze and sustain our epistemophilia [= en slags kunnskapsfanatisme om et emne]; these gaps and excesses provide openings for the many different knowledge communities that spring up around these cult movies to display their expertise, dig deep into their libraries, and bring their minds to bear on a text that promises a bottomless pit of secrets. Some of these allusions – say, the recurring references to “through the looking glass,” the White Rabbit, and the Red Queen, or the use of mythological names for the characters (Morpheus, Persephone, Trinity) – pop off the screen upon first viewing. Others – say, the fact that at one point, Neo pulls a copy of Baudrillard’s Simulacra and Simulation (1981 / 1995) from his shelf – become clear only after you talk about the film with friends. Some – like the fact that Cypher, the traitor, is referred to at one point as “Mr. Reagan” and asks for an alternative life where he is an actor who gains political power – are clear only when you put together information from multiple sources. Still others – such as the license plates on the cars (such as DA203 or IS5416), which reference specific and context-appropriate Bible verses (Daniel 2:3 or Isaiah 54:16) – may require you to move through the film frame by frame on your DVD player.” (Jenkins 2008 s. 100-101)
“The deeper you drill down, the more secrets emerge, all of which can seem at any moment to be the key to the film. For example, Neo’s apartment number is 101, which is the room number of the torture chamber in George Orwell’s 1984 (1949). Once you’ve picked up this number, then you discover that 101 is also the floor number for the Merovingians’ nightclub and the number of the highway where the characters clash in The Matrix Reloaded , and from there, one can’t help but believe that all of the other various numbers in the film may carry hidden meanings or connect significant characters and locations toghether. The billboards in the background of shots contain cheat codes that can be used to unlock levels in the Enter the Matrix (2003) game. The sheer abundance of allusions makes it nearly impossible for any given consumer to master the franchise totally.” (Jenkins 2008 s. 101) Men noen prøver å overskue helheten (i den grad det finnes noen helhet): “Across a range of fan sites and discussion lists, the fans were gathering information, tracing allusions, charting chains of command, constructing timelines, assembling reference guides, transcribing dialogue, extending the story through 12
their own fan fiction, and speculating like crazy about what it all meant. The depth and breadth of the Matrix universe made it impossible to “get it,” but the emergence of knowledge cultures made it possible to dig deeper into this bottomless text.” (Jenkins 2008 s. 131)
Wachowski-brødrene skrev et 244 siders manus for dataspillet Enter the Matrix og lagde ca. en time med film eksklusivt for spillet. I dette filmmaterialet er det scener som ikke forekommer i de tre spillefilmene. Bipersoner som Niobe og Ghost fra filmene blir sentrale i dataspillet. Neo, Trinity og Morpheus er derimot ikke spillbare figurer, til tross for at de svært sentrale i filmene.
“In 2003, Andy and Larry Wachowski released a story across three different works: a short anime (Japanese style animation), digital game and feature film. Each of these compositions are self-contained, but also have a continuing narrative that run through all of them. In the short 2003 anime, ‘The Last Flight of Osiris,’ the character Jue and her crew discover the machines are drilling to Zion. Their aim is to warn Zion of the impending danger by sending a message to the Nebuchadnezzar crew. At the end of the story Jue just manages to post the letter (thus ending a narrative thread), but what happens to the letter is not revealed in the anime (a continuing thread). Instead, what happens is dealt with in the 2003 digital game, Enter the Matrix where the first mission for the player is to retrieve the letter from the post office. The player succeeds in continuing the narrative but the consequences of that action are not revealed in the game. It is at the beginning of the second film, The Matrix Reloaded (Warner Brothers, 2003), when Niobe (who is one of two player-characters in the game) reports on the “last transmissions of the Osiris”: the transmissions posted in the anime and retrieved by players in the digital game.” (Dena 2009 s. 100-101)
I boka Tele-Visions: An Introduction to Studying Television (2006; redigert av Glen Creeber) bruker Robin Nelson termen “flexi-narratives” om en “hybrid mix of serial and series forms ... mixtures of the series and the serial form, involving the closure of one story arc within an episode (like a series) but with other ongoing story arcs involving the regular characters (like a serial) [slik at historien] maximises the pleasures of both regular viewers who watch from week to week and get hooked by the serial narratives and the occasional viewers who happen to tune into one episode seeking the satisfaction of narrative closure within that episode” (sitert fra Harrigan og Wardrip-Fruin 2009 s. 315-316). En “fleksi-fortelling” kan f.eks. handle om en detektivs dramatiske liv, men detektiven løser og avslutter en kriminalsak per episode.
For ikke å lage indre motsigelser og logiske brudd i en lang transmedial historie, trengs det dokumenter som bestemmer hva som uansett skal ligge fast i framtidige produkter. “In collaborative and long-running projects there are documents known as a “bible” or “design document”. The television industry uses what is called a ‘show bible’ or ‘series bible’ to describe various elements such as the stylistic 13
differences of the show, the characters and their relationships with each other, plots that will/have taken place and so on. Likewise, in the game industry a “game design document” or “game bible” is used, but also includes a range of elements such as the technical specifications (how the artificial intelligence works, game engine), details of the game world, player characters, non-player characters, gameplay and so on. The functions of the series bible and game bible are not, however, completely analogous. Since television shows are almost always written by committee, a “series bible” helps “ensure continuity in all future scripts” (Caldwell 2008, 213). An example is the series bible for Battlestar Galactica by Ronald D. Moore. In this document, Moore begins by explaining the “fundamentals of Battlestar Galactica,” which includes the visual approach, ideological and dramatic tension of the series, along with the “three-tiered” serial structure of the entire series. The document includes a mission statement, which acts as a manifesto, explaining how the series is different to others and what it sets out to achieve. The rest of the document outlines the history, religion, culture, society and technology of the Twelve Colonies; the culture, society and technology of the Cylons; character biographies; storyline approach (tension, structure, the Cylons, plot-driven stories, character stories); season one story and character arcs; and the history, officers and technical details of the actual Battlestar Galactica ” (Dena 2009 s. 134-135).
“In the transmedia context, there is a concern about visual continuity but also world continuity . Akin to a series bible mentioned earlier, franchises are now utilizing more a franchise bible or world or universe guide. This guide sets out the history, plots, characters and event details of the world to facilitate continuity across all compositions created by either the same or different creative bodies. Industry practitioner Jeff Gomez […] has been providing such a service for franchises since the mid 1990s for the Wizards of the Coast’s Magic: The Gathering , and more recently for Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean franchise and James Cameron’s Avatar (among others): [Jeff Gomez had the] task [of] creating the bible for the Pirates universe. He needed to flesh out details to ensure consistency between features, novels, and games and to create a robust universe. […] In the past, companies have tried to milk the bone dry, but now they are learning to nurture franchises. This consistency across media is part of that strategy. (Sikora 2007)” (Dena 2009 s. 141).
James Camerons film Avatar (2009) ble supplert med nettsider som bød på flere innganger til fantasiverdenen Pandora. Nettstedet Pandorapedia var en slags guide til områdets fauna, flora og befolkning, og inneholdt også en ordbok med engelsk– na’vi (de innfødtes språk i filmen). Nettstedet Pandorama tilbød en virtuell reise som ved bruk av et webkamera skulle være spesielt oppslukende. Nettstedet AVTR tilbød en rekke reportasjer om filmens verden (Delaporte 2017 s. 88).
Det er et anliggende for medieselskaper som selger sine produkter til hele verden, ikke å ødelegge spenningen for alle dem som ser eller leser en medietekst senere 14
enn under den første lanseringen. På et internasjonalt mediemarked blir rekkefølgen verk ses/leses i svært forskjellig fra land til land og fra person til person. “Producers must ensure that whatever is revealed in the ARG [“alternate reality game/gaming”, dvs. skiftende virkelighet-spill] is not needed to comprehend the TV series, as the audience of millions for the latter will certainly dwarf the number of players who will stick through “Experience” until its conclusion this fall. Additionally, “Experience” is running simultaneously across the globe, but Lost ’s schedule outside the US is significantly lagged – for instance, the UK is just now getting episode 7 in the already completed season 2 – meaning that any plot revelations in the ARG must be sure not to spoil mysteries within the television series. Thus “Experience” must offer only supplementary inessential narrative information to Lost , allowing the television series to retain centrality within the storyworld.” (Jason Mittel sitert fra Dena 2009 s. 243)
Retcon (forkortelse for “retroactive continuity”) innebærer at innhold fjernes eller legges til på den tidslinja som utgjør en langstrakt og komplisert historie, eventuelt en transmedial historie. Dette betyr at det lar seg gjøre å forandre på noe som allerede har skjedd og blitt fortalt. Et eksempel: Historien om en superhelt har blitt fortalt i en svært stor mengde blader gjennom flere tiår og med mange ulike forfattere og tegnere. I noen tilfeller blir fortiden til superhelten “justert”, dvs. at tidligere fakta endres. Nye historiske fakta etableres.
Den amerikanske science fiction-forfatteren Ray Bradbury bidro til et dataspill i 1984-86, Telariums Fahrenheit 451 (1986), der Bradbury skrev en innledende historie som begynner der hans egen roman fra 1953 ender (Lischka 2002 s. 76).
Et transmedialt univers oppstod med dataspillet Myst (1993), lagd av de amerikanske brødrene Robyn og Rand Miller. Myst -spillet ble inspirert av og kan oppfattes som en løs adaptasjon av Jules Vernes roman Den hemmelighetsfulle øya (1874) (Davidson 2008 s. 59). “Like the protagonists in Verne’s novel, the reader/player of Myst is stranded on an island that is full of haunting enchantements just waiting to be discovered.” (Davidson 2008 s. 98)
Myst var det “first interactive artifact to suggest that a new art form may well be plausible, a kind of puzzle box inside a novel inside a painting – only with music.” (Jon Carroll sitert fra Davidson 2008 s. 97) “The story grand that is related in Myst could not have occured in one medium. You would lose the unique qualities of the combination of the mediums if you used only one. [...] Combining the narrative across these mediums gives you a story in which you are not only a reader, but a “co-author, theater goer, movie goer, museum visitor and player, all at the same time”. ” (Davidson 2008 s. 111; det avsluttende sitatet er av Adrian Miles)
”In mapping the story grand of Myst , there are three novels completed; Myst: The Book of Atrus , Myst: The Book of Ti’Ana , and Myst: The Book of D’Ni , and a fourth one expected at some point in the near future, Myst: The Book of Marrim . [...] The 15
story grand of Myst goes through some time jumps with the novels. As noted earlier, the story grand actually starts in the second novel, the Book of Ti’Ana . It then moves to the first novel, the Book of Atrus , followed by the comic, the Book of the Black Ships , and then the two CD-ROMs, Myst and Riven , followed by the final novel, the Book of D’Ni , and then the game Myst III: Exile . It then moved online (if only temporarily) with Uru: Ages Beyond Myst , which was followed by Uru: To D’Ni and Uru: The Path of the Shell . Finally, it moved to Myst IV: Revelations and the a webcomic, Myst V Comic , followed by Myst V: End of Ages . But these books and CD-ROMs were released in different timeframes. The Myst CD-ROM was released first, then the Book of Atrus , then the Book of Ti’Ana , then the comic Book of Black Ships (there was also and unofficial comic Myst: Passages ) then the Book of D’Ni , then Riven , Myst III , Uru: Ages Beyond Myst , Uru: To D’Ni , Uru: The Path of the Shell , Myst IV , “Myst V Comic,” Myst V and the upcoming Myst: Book of Marrim .” (Davidson 2008 s. 56-58; understrekinger fjernet og fet skrift endret til kursiv)
Rekkefølgen på den store historien kan illustreres slik, der de fleste sentrale verkene er tatt med:
”The first Myst novel, the Book of Atrus , focuses on the story of the mysterious father figure from the Myst CD-ROM. The Millers have said that while they were developing the Myst game, they kept documenting the backstory of the game in order to help them piece together the story presented in the CD-ROM [...]. And when they completed the CD-ROM, they realized that they had enough backstory material to put together a novel. [...] In presenting his tnarrative, the Miller brothers have co-authored the novel with David Wingrove.” (Davidson 2008 s. 60-61) ”The final resolution of this first novel more fully sets up the beginning of the CD-ROM Myst . Like the deeper explanation of the linking books, this story gives us more of the details and a context in which to fit those ominous first lines of dialogue that we hear in the introduction of the CD-ROM. These same lines serve as the final words read in the book [ The Book of Atrus ], so a direct connection is made in the storyline between these two pieces. This direct connection implicates the reader into the
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action about to take place as well as illustrating that in between the end of this novel and the beginning of the CD-ROM many events (seemingly tragic and partially revealed in the comic book) occur before the reader becomes an active part in the sleuthing in the Myst CD-ROM.” (Davidson 2008 s. 63)
Hovedtemaet i Myst -romanene signaliserer hva som trengs for å lykkes med dataspillene: “In the novels the theme is one of the virtue, joy and rewards of carefully exploring and enjoying the world around us. That way you are living a full life and seing the whole. This theme could very well be the best instruction for how to successfully play the CD-ROM games. You need to carefully explore the worlds in the games in order to successfully puzzle through and fully experience the story that only moves forward as long as you’re exploring the worlds.” (Davidson 2008 s. 59) “[T]here is a big thematic emphasis on being naturally curious about the worlds we inhabit.” (Davidson 2008 s. 65) “[T]he theme [i romanene] has an ultimate connection with the hypermedia CD-ROMs. In the novels the theme is one of the virtue, joy and rewards of carefully and fully exploring and enjoying the world around you. That way you are living a full life and seeing the whole. This theme is good instruction for how to successfully play the games.” (Davidson 2008 s. 129) Men i romanene “there aren’t any spoilers for the games. You aren’t given any clues or hints. [...] the perspective of a player of the CD-ROM games is treated as a character in passing reference within the third novel.” (Davidson 2008 s. 58-59)
Romanen The Book of D’Ni , den tredje Myst -romanen, gir mest mening for dem som har spilt til ende og vunnet begge dataspillene Myst og Riven (Davidson 2008 s. 67). D’Ni (uttales “dunny”) er et folk som lever under jorden i fantastiske grotter og er forbundet med millioner av verdener.
En ”Masterpiece Edition of Myst was released. This edition had technological improvements and an active help agent/character you could work with to help you through the game. Also, a new version of Myst , called realMyst , was released. It is the exact same game and story as the original except this version is not a series of lush still graphics that you point and click through. Insted, realMyst runs with real- time 3D graphics, so it is a lush simulated world in which you truly navigate around. You can walk around trees and rooms with close to infinite freedom, thereby being able to more fully immerse yourself in the world. Myst III: Exile is the next game which takes place ten years after the events in Riven and also use 3D panning. And it’s followed by Myst IV: Revelations which adds more to the story grand. [...] Then there is Uru: Ages Beyond Myst , meant to be a massively- multiplayer online game beyond Myst [ble ikke realisert som MMORPG, men utgitt som cd-rom, med to ekspansjonspakker]” (Davidson 2008 s. 147).
“The Writer’s of D’Ni is an online MOO (a text-based object-oriented multi-user domain) that enables players to write their own worlds. Plus there are three fan- created Myst -like games, The Ages of Ilathid , Aveara , and D’Ni Legacy ” (Davidson 17
2008 s. 148). Dessuten har det blitt publisert parodier og bløffeversjoner med titler som Pyst , Mysty , Missed og Mylk .
Core Design m.fl.s dataspillserie Tomb Raider (fra 1996 og senere) med Lara Croft som avatar har hull i kronologien som fylles av romaner og tegneserier om Croft (Rauscher 2012 s. 175). Romanene kalles av Andreas Rauscher for “spin-off- romaner” (2012 s. 176). Den amerikanske forfatteren Chuck Palahniuks roman Fight Club (1996) fikk en oppfølger (sequel) som tegneserie, Fight Club 2 (2015). Serien er tegnet av Cameron Stewart, og handlingen foregår ti år etter romanen.
Det finnes online-dagbøker på Internett for kjente fiksjonskarakterer, og figuren Darth Vader fra Star Wars har en brukerkonto på mikroblogg-tjenesten Twitter (Lüdeke 2011 s. 81).
I avhandlingen Transmedia Practice: Theorising the Practice of Expressing a Fictional World across Distinct Media and Environments skriver Christy Dena om en teaterforestilling som “fortsatte” i en avis på Verdensveven. Avisa inneholdt bare oppdiktet stoff: “The audience may also continue their experience at home, as in the case of a 2007 play by theatre producer and playwright Jason Grote: 1001 . For this experience, audiences could not only experience the play in the theatre, but could (either before or after the production) also view a specially-made website: The Daily Times […]. Grote created the fictional newspaper to provide further detail about his fictional world. Here the fictional world is experienced in the theatre and on a computer (presumably at home).” (Dena s. 92-93)
“[T]he character Jason Bourne in the feature film Bourne Ultimatum searches in Google for an investment company, Sewell and Marbury . Finding the site hadn’t been created, a fan secured it and created it to a small degree according to the fiction at “www.sewellmarbury.com” (JC 2007). But mostly, the fan, JC, invites people who visit the website to leave a comment and what country they are from. The website was created in 2007 and has had to date over one-thousand comments from people all over the world (more would have visited the site and not left a comment). They all leave surprised and cheerful comments saying they just had to check if the website was real (and in most cases checked while they were watching the film on DVD), how they were thrilled to find it there, and that so many people had checked it just like them.” (Dena 2009 s. 314)
Et annet eksempel på en transmedial historie er The Blair Witch Project . “The concept of transmedia storytelling first entered public dialogue in 1999 as audiences and critics tried to make sense of the phenomenal success of The Blair Witch Project (1999), a small-budget independent film that became a huge moneymaker. To think of The Blair Witch Project as a film was to miss the bigger picture. The Blair Witch Project had created a fan following on the Web more than a year before it hit any theaters. Many people learned about the Burkittsville witch and the disappearance of the production crew that forms the central plot of the 18
movie by going online and finding this curious Web site that seemed to be absolutely real in every detail. The site provided documentation of numerous witch sightings over the past centuries, most of which are not directly referenced in the film but form the backdrop for its action. A pseudodocumentary investigating the witch aired on the Sci Fi Channel, with little to set it apart from the many other documentaries about supernatural phenomena the network periodically airs. After the film’s release, Oni Press released several comic books that it claimed were based on the accounts of another person who had met the witch while walking in the woods near Burkittsville. Even the soundtrack was presented as a tape found in the abandoned car. All of these elements made the world of the film more convincing, enhancing the immediacy the Haxans, as the film’s creative team called themselves, had achieved through their distinctive handheld-video style and improvisational acting.” (Jenkins 2008 s. 103-104)
Den første nettsida for The Blair Witch Project stimulerte interessen ved å virke sann og autentisk: “Ed Sanchez, another member of the team, explained: “Everything was based on this one decision to make everything as real as possible. ... Let’s continue with the prime directive – the idea that this is a Web site put up by people interested in the case, trying to bring justice or closure or promote an investigation into the mystery. We set up the timeline, added details to the backstory. ... We started fabricating artifacts, paintings, carvings, old books, and I would scan them in.” Sanchez added a discussion board and saw the emergence of a community of fans who were fascinated by the Blair Witch mythology: “What we learned from Blair Witch is that if you give people enough stuff to explore, they will explore. Not everyone but some of them will. The people who do explore and take advantage of the whole world will forever be your fans, will give you an energy you can’t buy through advertising. ... It’s the web of information that is laid out in a way that keeps people interested and keeps people working for it. If people have to work for something, they devote more time to it. And they give it more emotional value. [...] We ended up exploiting the Web in ways that as far as movies were concerned, nobody had ever done before.” ” (Jenkins 2008 s. 104-105).
I forbindelse med lanseringen av The Blair Witch Project ble det distribuert plakater med bilder av de “savnede” personene (J. P. Telotte i Mathijs og Mendik 2008 s. 265). “[E]stablishing this real-wold context and giving it authority [...] anchors us in that realm of normalcy with maps, police reports, found objects, and characters”, fulgt opp av en nettside der publikum/fans kunne “gathering background on the region; pursuing the public debate about the missing students through interviews with Burkittsville locals, parents of the students, and college professors of anthropology and folklore; reading pages of Heather’s diary; looking over evidence accumulated by the local sheriff, the anthropology students, and the private investigator hired by Heather’ mother. [...] The various interviews offered here – with, for example, Bill Barnes, Executive Director of the Burkittsville Historical Society; Charles Moorehouse, a professor of folklore; or private investigator Buck Buchanon, among others [...] the ‘ Blair Witch ’ site was not an 19
added-on marketing tool but was designed as part of the film experience” (J. P. Telotte i Mathijs og Mendik 2008 s. 268-269).
“Chris Pike was one of the media industry folks who was inspired by what the Haxans had created with The Blair Witch Project . Pike was part of a team working at Sony trying to explore the Web in promoting television series. What they came up with was Dawson’s Desktop, a Web site that modeled the computer files of Dawson’s Creek ’s (1998) title character, allowing visitors to read his e-mail to the other characters, sneak a peak at his journal, his course papers, his screenplay drafts, and, for the most intrusive visitor, even to dig around in his trash bin. The site was updated each day, filling the gaps between the aired episodes. At its peak popularity, the site was drawing 25 million page views per week. As Pike explained, “We considered our episodes to be a seven day arc starting one minute after the show ended. ... Inevitably Dawson’s Creek would end on a cliffhanger of some kind, we would expand on it, tackle it, address some of the elements fans would be calling each other and discussing. We wanted to grab that energy right after the show and propel us through the rest of the week. [...] And then as we approached each episode, a day or two before, it was our time to enflame the viewership and start giving a few more clues to what was about to happen. ... We had to give all of the clues without giving away the actual events. Our job was to whet the appetites.” ” (Jenkins 2008 s. 117-118)
“From the start, the Dawson’s Desktop team collaborated with the program’s active fans. Its producers said they were inspired to expand the story from reading all of the fan fiction that sprang up around the characters. They closely monitored the five hundred or so Dawson’s Creek fan sites and created an advisory board of twenty- five creators who they felt had developed the best amateur content. As Andrew Schneider, a leader of the project, explained, “We’re in touch with them all the time. We wanted to make sure the fans were getting what they wanted. They helped us design the interface and they told us what they liked and did not like.” As the site continued, the fans were encouraged to send their own e-mails to Dawson as if they were fellow Capeside High students, and he would respond to their fictional personas on the site. In that way, the producers integrated the creative energy of the fan community into developing new content, which, in turn, would sustain fan interest.” (Jenkins 2008 s. 119-120)
“The ‘Summer Diaries’ feature lets a Dawson’s Creek fan read her favourite characters’ personal journal, while
TV show; another gives the visitor access to scribbled notes, supposedly written by the characters and passed under the table during their college classes. The page’s slogan reads: ‘Think you know everything that’s going on in Capeside High? Think again.’ Certainly, the producers’ intention, as expressed through the official sites, seems to be to create a multi-media ‘Dawson’s Creek Experience’, encouraging viewers to seek out the music and clothes favoured by the characters and to participate in their lives on a daily basis through online questionnaires and interactive simulations. A culture is being constructed where ‘regular’ teenage viewers, not just committed fans, use Dawson’s Creek and its website as the basis for everyday shopping decisions.” (Brooker og Jermyn 2006 s. 324)
BBCs tv-serie Attachments (2000 -02) handler om “a fledgling dotcom company, run by married couple Mike and Luce, and the problems the team has in setting up and maintaining a lifestyle and music site called
“The seethru site will go live when the first episode goes out, with the standards waxing and waning after that according to the fortunes of the fictional web business. So at the outset users will log on to the amateurish site that Mike has been running from his bedroom. The internet offering will get a more professional feel when funding is secured in the drama, but the quality will also deteriorate again at times of crisis during the series. Root stresses that Attachments is intended to work as a stand-alone TV show, with the viewing audience still the primary focus. But it has also been created to appeal to ‘v-users’ – people who experience the drama through their PC screens. Anything that provokes rows or controversy in the drama will disappear from the seethru site at the exact same moment as it is fictionally deleted, according to Root.”
What was on offer here was an immersive, participatory experience that went far beyond watching the TV programme for forty-five minutes a week. In theory, the Attachments fan could log onto
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“For the superhero drama Heroes , a series of Web comics, released each week in coordination with the aired content, provided an ideal vehicle for providing backstory on the expanding cast of characters: “We had so many stories to tell and there was only so much room in the TV show – so we decided that we could tell these alternative stories in the comics. The stories could be deeper, broader and reveal more secrets about our characters. It was also a way to tell stories that would be otherwise unproducable on our show” [sier Jeph Loeb]. [...] In another experiment in transmedia storytelling, the producers of CSI:NY collaborated with Linden Lab, the creators of Second Life , a popular virtual world, and with Electric Sheep, an advertising company closely associated with strategies of transmedia branding. Viewers could enter a digital re-creation of the crime scene introduced in one episode and work through clues together before the solution to the mystery was announced on a subsequent episode.” (Jenkins 2008 s. 123-124)
Stan Lee’s Mighty 7 (fra 2012) handler om en gruppe på sju alien-skapninger som blir superhelter på jorda. Historien begynner i tegneserieblader, og fortelles videre i en trilogi av TV-animasjonsfilmer flankert av Internett-sider og sosiale-medier- kampanjer. Historien fra filmene utvides på nettet, med “webisodes”, karakterprofiler på sosiale medier, og bruk av podkasting (ifølge det tyske tidsskriftet W&R nr. 5 i 2014 s. 25).
Et annet eksempel er den transmediale historien “the Beast”, som sprang ut av en Spielberg-film som gled over i et Internett-basert spill. The name [“the Beast”] started with the Puppetmasters, the Microsoft team hired to put together what was perhaps the world’s most complex puzzle, but soon the name was also being used by the Cloudmakers, a self-selected team of more than five hundred players who were working together to solve it. The “Beast” was created to help promote the Steven Spielberg film Artificial Intelligence: A.I. (2001), but most people who lived through it would laugh in your face it you thought the film was in any sense more important or more interesting than the game it spawned. Here’s how one of the game’s Puppetmasters, Sean Stewart, described the initial concept: “Create an entire self-contained world on the wb, say a thousand pages deep, and then tell a story through it, advancing the plot with weekly updates, concealing each new piece of narrative in such a way that it would take clever teamwork to dig it out. Create a vast array of assets – custom photos, movies, audio recordings, scripts, corporate blurbage, logos, graphic treatments, web sites, flash movies – and deploy them through a net of (untraceable) web sites, phone calls, fax systems, leaks, press releases, phony newpaper ads, and so on ad infinitum.” [...] From the start, the puzzles were too complex, the knowledge too esoteric, the universe too vast to be solved by any single player.” (Jenkins 2008 s. 127-128)
“Online promotion for Steven Spielberg’s [film] AI has been even more oblique; filmgoers intrigued by the crediting of a ‘sentient machine therapist’ called Jeanine Salla at the end of the second cinema trailer had to type her name into Google and trace her footprints across the web, from her fictional university to sites 22
campaigning for AI rights. [...] Rather than simply watching the film on its release, the user is invited to investigate the diegetic world and enter into a form of competition with the producers to discover information that the primary text omits or conceals. The interaction is more similar to playing a PC adventure game than visiting a promotional site.” (Brooker og Jermyn 2006 s. 325)
“As one player [av “the Beast”] told CNN, “To date, puzzles have had us reading Gödel, Escher and Bach , translating from German and Japanese, even an obscure language called Kannada, decrypting Morse code and Enigma, and performing an unbelievable range of operations on sound and image files.” To confront the “beast” required players to work together, seeking out friends, tapping Web communities, drawing in anyone you could find. Before long, smaller teams joined forces, until there was an army of scavengers and puzzle-solvers, putting in hours and hours a day trying to find their way to the bottom of the conspiracies. [...] The Beast was a new form of immersive entertainment of encyclopedic storytelling, which was unfolding at the points of contact between authors and consumers.” (Jenkins 2008 s. 128-129)
“The production team behind the Dutch film App (Boermans, 2013) did not originally set out to make a second screen experience [på kinolerret + på mobiltelefon]. At first they intended to make a conventional horror movie about a young woman named Anna who is stalked and terrorised by a malicious and apparently intelligent app on her phone called Iris. Then, as the idea went into development, the director Bobby Boermans decided that the subject matter lent itself to a transmedia second screen experience. According to Boermans, ‘the one thing you learn about all these technologies is that they can heighten the emotional experience and elevate whatever feeling you have – whether it’s joy or fear’ (Author interview, June 2017). A movie companion app was developed using the same audio fingerprinting technology that had been used to track down illegal digital downloads. At first, the app displays content synchronised to the film itself: for example, online news stories about events featured in the plot, text messages sent by characters on screen and different camera angles during scenes. In the second half of the film, as Iris becomes more menacing, the second screen content becomes equally unsettling. For example, Iris begins taking embarrassing photos of the characters and these images suddenly appear within the app. Perhaps one of the most successful second screen moments happens when a bomb is set to explode on screen and the mobile phones of viewers vibrate as the countdown is secretly revealed. ‘You can either withhold information or put your audience a step ahead’ says Boermans, ‘and that’s a cool idea to play around with’.” (James Blake i http:// www.participations.org/Volume%2014/Issue%202/27.pdf; lesedato 08.02.18)
Det danske dataspillet Blackout utgjorde en komponent i en transmedial historie. Spillet ble produsert av Deadline games og Michael Valeur i 1997 og utgitt med en 140 siders roman skrevet av Valeur. Den danske barneboka Anthony Greenwood og den amerikanske præsident (2005) av Renée Toft Simonsen består av en bok og en
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cd-rom som inneholder et PC-spill. I dataspillet kan brukeren spille Anthony Greenwood på nye, farlige oppdrag. I Politikens forlags reklame het det at “Den gode historie fortsætter på computeren”.
Kanadieren PJ Haarsma (Philip-Jon Haarsma) “ville skrive en science fiction- roman for tenåringen, men ante ikke hvordan han skulle beskrive planetsystemet Orbis, der handlingen finner sted. Løsningen ble å lage et dataspill. Spillet utvider romanens univers, men ungene som spiller det får samtidig en sterk oppfordring til å lese romanen, fordi én måte å komme seg videre på, er å besvare spørsmål og svarene finnes mellom de stive permene.” ( Dagbladet 22. oktober 2008 s. 40)
Den norske musikeren, journalisten og forfatteren Bård Torgersen ga i 2003 ut en CD kalt Brown Ring of Fury , under kunstnernavnet 1349 Rykkinn. I 2004 lanserte han dokumentarfilmen Las Palmas , med handling fra Kanariøyene. Filmen foregår i et miljø av dopdealere, flyktninger, dørvakter, tatovører og løse eksistenser. Filmmusikken er delvis fra Brown Ring Of Fury og delvis fra improvisasjoner rundt sangen “Deilig er jorden”, spilt inn i desember 2003 under en førjulskonsert i Mariakirken i Oslo. Las Palmas har Torgersen i et intervju med nettstedet ballade.no kalt “et dystert portrett av en av Europas største turistmaskiner”, og at “Opptakene til “Las Palmas” ble gjort på ett døgn under min sjette tur til hovedstaden på den største av Kanariøyene, Las Palmas, […] I “Las Palmas” forener jeg de tre uttrykksformene jeg jobber mest med – foto, journalistikk og musikk […] Skyer og overraskende kald vind. I de larmende bakgatene i Las Palmas bakgater venter flyktninger fra Afrika, folk som har gått på sine egne ben gjennom hele det afrikanske kontinentet, fra Nigeria til Marokko, bygget seg flåter og kastet seg ut i sjøen for å nå Europa. I strandkanten står den elektrosjokk- behandlede spanjolen, og drikker vin til han faller sammen. Ikke langt unna, i parken med de store palmene, sitter arbeidsløse menn og sover. I time etter time. De har ikke noe ønske om å våkne igjen. […] Albumet “Brown Ring of Fury” på Jester records var i stor del basert på lydopptak gjort på nettopp Las Palmas. Denne musikken utgjør nå den ene halvdelen av lydsiden på filmen “Las Palmas”. [… musikken er] en fascinerende blanding av tungt veltende støy, mørkt monotone stemninger og høyst frihetlig musikk” (ballade.no; lesedato 25.03.04).
Torgersens debutroman Alt skal vekk (2005) er en jeg-roman om en ensom og selvdestruktiv ung mann. Han stjeler kredittkortet fra sin psykisk syke venninne og reiser til Las Palmas og New York. Han bruker alkohol og narkotika, bevisst og selvødeleggende. Hans liv er uten mål og mening og et sentralt tema i romanen er menneskenes vansker med å forstå og snakke med hverandre. Denne romanen er tredje del i det Torgersen har kalt en trilogi, som består av en CD, en dokumentarfilm og romanen. “Alt skal vekk utgjør dessuten siste del i en trilogi, som ellers består av en plate og en dokumentarfilm. - Det ironiske er jo at det er først nå som jeg har skrevet en roman at filmen og støyskiva mi blir lest inn i en større sammenheng, sier Torgersen” (ballade.no; lesedato 12.10.05).
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Den kanadiske sangeren Neil Young står bak sanger, bøker, tegneserier og filmer om en oppdiktet by kalt Greendale. “The story of a tragic event and its effects on three generations of an American family, Neil Young's Greendale, originally described as a “musical novel,” has produced a groundbreaking and critically acclaimed album, film, muti-media tour, and graphic novel. For this book [Greendale av Neil Young], the story of the Green family is expanded and brought to vivid life with the help of illustrations by James Mazzeo. Chapters highlight lyrics and stories behind each of the piece's ten songs.” (http://www.neilyoung. com/tablet/greendale-infopage.html; lesedato 16.12.13)
“In the spring of 2003, Neil Young began a short acoustic tour that started piecing together the world of Greendale . A strange, unruly project that walks a fine line between adaptation (or ‘repurposing’), remediation and transmedia(tion), Greendale follows the lives of the Green family in California, and charts the various ways that the outside world – and in particular its media – manages to snake its way into their lives. Unlike most transmedia productions, however, Greendale contains only a deceptively simple ‘core’ story told through the point of view each platform (a series of staggered releases ranging from live performance, recorded music, print, film and the internet), one that utilizes a medium’s unique properties as a tool for subtly inserting new storylines and pathways. […] Young dropped slightly different information in each show, assured that ‘everything [he] said would be recorded, transcribed, and circulated’, a stilling of kineticism and improvisation by other media that grows the story in the process […]. Similarly, the other sites in Greendale also work by revealing content that is obscured by a given platform’s makeup: we might hear about a painting in a song, but see on film each fresh stroke put to canvas while that same song plays; view the painting up-close while wandering through an interactive online gallery, but glean the motivations behind its creation in the recently released graphic novel. Narrative extension exists here, but in a way that is not only medium-specific, but also potentially transmedia- specific.” (Marc Ruppel i http://mediacommons.futureofthebook.org/imr/2010/07/ 27/still-waiting-transmedia-godot; lesedato 08.01.14)
“In Greendale , Young is playing a role similar, if not identical, to transmedia producer, ensuring that even the embellishments of its off-Broadway stage production were consistent with what came before it. […] So while Greendale is far from typical, border cases such as this one raise some compelling questions for current transmedia practice. We might do well to wonder, then, what other casualties such a marked distinction could bring. […] While transmedia currently means many things to many people, could the openness of transmedia ‘then’ (where, much like live performance, many were making things up as they went along), in some ways be more conducive to progression than the increasingly standardized practices of transmedia ‘now’?” (Marc Ruppel i http:// mediacommons.futureofthebook.org/imr/2010/07/27/still-waiting-transmedia- godot; lesedato 12.12.13)
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“The Twin Peaks fictional world is expressed across the television series (which was cocreated by David Lynch and Mark Frost) as well as many books and a feature film. […] between season 1 and 2, The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer was published (written by Jennifer Lynch). The background of the character investigating the murder, Agent Cooper, is revealed in the 1991 book The Autobiography of F.B.I. Special Agent Dale Cooper: My Life, My Tapes , written by Mark Frost’s brother Scott Frost. There was also a 1991 travel guide to the fictional town of Twin Peaks, written by David Lynch, Mark Frost and Richard Saul Wurman: Welcome to Twin Peaks: Access® Guide to the Town . And finally, in 1992, David Lynch directed the feature film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me . Each of the works in the fictional world – the television episodes, feature film and books – are compositions in themselves. They are substantial works in their own right. But they become intercompositional phenomena when they are studied according to their fictional world, the relations between the compositions and the producer.” (Dena 2009 s. 105-106)
“The Hon brothers [Adrian og Dan Hon] went on to co-create Perplex City . In this ARG, a character, Violet, needed access to a (fictional) library so that she could read a diary that contained vital clues. The library, however, only allowed entry to published authors. Violet called on the Earth “cube hunters” (the players), to write a book so she could access a (fictional) library to view a diary (Kiteway 2005). A group of players answered that call and collaboratively wrote a book, Tales from the Third Planet on their wiki […] The designers responded by announcing the book will be published by the in-game (fictional) press, Seaside Press […], announced […] and reviewed […] the book in the fictional online newspaper Perplex City Sentinel , and made it available for sale in the actual world at the online print-on-demand store Lulu.com” (Dena 2009 s. 236)
“Sony Pictures has been hard at work on a project with a complex script about spies and terrorists, filming on location and using props that include a rented airplane. Is it the studio’s latest blockbuster in the making? Not even close. The undertaking is a nine-week “episodic online game” created by Sony marketers to stir audience interest in “Salt,” a forthcoming Angelina Jolie thriller. The game, titled Day X Exists, is a series of Web episodes and companion challenges that reveal an important plot line. Sony will unveil a new installment each week starting Monday on dayxexists.com. “It’s a supersophisticated game, but done in a way that a casual player can understand,” said Marc Weinstock, Sony’s marketing president. […] As studio marketers try harder to use technology to advertise movies, ambitious Web games that interlock with social networking sites are an increasing focus. With Day X Exists, Sony hopes to mimic the viral success of Facebook games like Mafia Wars, which is played by tens of millions of people. The goal is to reverse the consumer-advertiser relationship. Traditional marketing pushes a message over and over. If people instead pull bits of information into their lives through a game, they are more likely to feel a sense of ownership. […] Successful movie games get over a million plays, with some soaring to 10 million, he said, adding that movie-related
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iPhone apps can be downloaded in “the high hundreds of thousands of times. […] “We’re excited about it because the layers of the movie fit with the layers of the game,” said Mr. Weinstock of Sony. “Hopefully, it will bring people into the story line in a complementary way.” ” (http://www.nytimes.com/; lesedato 20.04.11)
“Fantasyforfatter Sigbjørn Mostue har skrevet bok som forutsetter at man sjekker informasjon på nettet. Boka har nemlig et eget tilhørende nettunivers med videoer, blogger og fiktive personer som gir sentral informasjon til historien. - Det er mulig å lese “Mørkeboka” [utgitt sammen med Matthijs Holter i 2009] uten å bruke Internett, men da vil man gå glipp av en viktig dimensjon og mange overbevisende poenger, sier Mostue. Han tror blandingen av bok og Internett vil bli en stor og levedyktig sjanger, som vil bli desto mer utbredt med e-boka. Mørkebokas internettunivers er lagd i samarbeid med rollespiller Matthijs Holter.” (Dagbladet 17. november 2009 s. 39)
Fenomenet transmedial historie overlapper i noen tilfeller delvis med adaptasjoner: “Novelizations of films, including what are called “junior” novelizations for younger viewers, are also often seen as having a kind of educational – or perhaps simply curiosity – value. If Internet postings are to be believed, fans of films enjoy their novelizations because they provide insights into the characters’ thought processes and more details about their background. […] They all increase audience knowledge about and therefore engagement in the “back story” of the adaptation. These various supplements are sometimes released before the films or games and therefore generate anticipation. Not only do these kinds of adaptations provide more details, especially about adapted characters’ inner lives, but in the process they also help foster audience/reader identification with those characters. They might also add scenes that do not appear in the screenplay or film versions, perhaps offering a minor character’s perspective on the action.” (Linda Hutcheon sitert fra Dena 2009 s. 152-153)
En historie som er adaptert mange ganger, og som har førfølgere (prequels) og oppfølgere (sequels), kan leses/ses/brukes i rekkefølger som gir en transmedial historie for brukeren. Eksemplet nedenfor gjelder Jane Eyre , der det etter 1847 er skrevet og produsert verk med handling som ligger både før og etter den handlingen Charlotte Brontë beskriver. Første figur viser noen få verk på tidsaksen (det finnes tallrike andre adaptasjoner av Brontës roman enn de to som er tatt med i figuren), deretter to måter å lage en transmedial opplevelse av hele historien på – fra Rochesters ungdom før han treffer Jane (Wide Sargasso Sea ) til hans og Janes datter vokser opp (Jane Eyre’s Daughter ).
Noen verk i ulike medier:
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Fire verk i to medier (bok og film):
Fire verk i tre medier (film, tegneserie, bok):
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Lydspor til en bok er en type transmedialitet. I 2012 ga musiker og forfatter Ketil Bjørnstad ut både cd-en Vinding’s Music: Songs From The Alder Thicket og boka Aksel Vinding-trilogien på 1232 sider. “Ketil Bjørnstad gir nå ut lydsporet til sin romantrilogi om den unge pianisten Aksel Vinding. Samtidig kommer trilogien i ny ettbindsutgave. I Aksel Vinding-trilogien møter vi unggutten fra Røa, som etter tapet av sin deprimerte mor knytter seg altfor sterkt til tre destruktive kvinner. Her låner forfatteren Bjørnstad for første gang øre til musikeren Bjørnstad. Historien om den unge pianovirtuosen, sin tids største talent, tar utgangspunkt i egne opplevelser som pianostudent i et Norge i brytningen mellom alvorstung etterkrigstid og fremveksten av en egen ungdomskultur. […] De improviserte temaene korresponderer presis med mitt eget bilde på hvordan Aksel Vindings komposisjoner må høres ut. […] For ytterligere å illustrere Vindings musikalske univers er andre plate viet verk som opptrer med sentrale roller i bøkene. Her er Beethovens Sonate Opus 109 og Chopins Ballade i g-moll , som venninnen/ elskerinnen Rebecca Frost snubler seg gjennom på sin debutkonsert. Her er Chopins Clair de Lune som Aksels søster ødelegger med høylytte bravo under “Ungdommens Pianomesterskap”. […] Utvalget går hånd i hånd med bøkenes melankolske gjennomgangstone, som på tross av dypt tragiske hendelser mest av alt har noe forsonende ved seg. […] Vinding’s Music – Songs From The Alder Thicket høyner leseropplevelsen.” (Svein Magnus Furu i Morgenbladet 27. april–3. mai 2012 s. 32)
Den meksikanske forfatteren Laura Esquivel ga i 1995 ut verket The Law of Love (oversatt fra spansk til engelsk i 1996). Verket består av en bok og en cd med
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meksikanske melodier og musikk av Puccini og andre. På omslaget kalles boka en “multisensory novel” med en cd som “integrates music into the story”. Hovedpersonen Azucena (en “astroanalyst”) leter etter sin tvillingsjel og blir inkarnert og framkaller minner i løpet av jakten. Deler av teksten er tegneseriesekvenser av den spanske tegneserieskaperen Miguelanxo Prado. På bestemte steder i teksten står det “CD Track 1” osv. “[T]he reader is prompted at certain times to play a track of music. Even though the music is part of the diegesis (it is what the character hears), the cue is extradiegetic: “CD Track 1” ” (Dena 2009 s. 308). Musikken er altså ment å spilles på steder i handlingen bestemt av forfatteren. Verbal tekst, tegneserie og musikk utgjør en kunstnerisk helhet. I forlagets reklame for den norske oversettelsen ble boka kalt “En roman å danse til – en CD med smektende musikk følger historien”.
I Eric-Emmanuel Schmitts Mitt liv med Mozart (på norsk 2005) fulgte det bakerst i boka med en cd med Mozart-musikk som skal akkompagnere hvert kapittel. Den norske utgaven av Roald Dahls Lille Rødhette (1999) ga Gyldendal ut med både bok og musikk-CD.
Alle artiklene og litteraturlista til hele leksikonet er tilgjengelig på https://www.litteraturogmedieleksikon.no
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